The Modern Pentathlon -- a combination of five different individual events -- will be held Sept. 30 for men and Oct. 1 for women.

The Olympic competition is the second for men and first for women and will take place at various venues. The events are fencing, swimming, shooting, riding and running.

Prior to 1956, scoring was based on an athlete's placing in each of the five events. However, since 1956 the competition has been scored much like the decathlon, with a set of charts assigning a point total to each performance. The competition, which was first held in 1912, used to be conducted over a two-day period but was switched to one day at the Atlanta Olympics four years ago in order to reduce costs and make the event more spectator-friendly.

The modern pentathlon combines five disciplines that were considered necessary to be a soldier.